The first thing he sees when he wakes up is Jack, which isn’t unusual but the fact that he’s lying in a white room with his head throbbing and the scent of disinfectant heavy in his nose is. Sound feels far away but its crawling back slowly, as if from the other end of a tunnel, and when Jack’s lips move Rhys can just manage to make out what he’s trying to say.
“Who gave you permission to fall asleep, pumpkin?”
He says it with a touch of humor, because that’s how Jack says everything. Rhys isn’t sure he’s ever heard him take anything seriously but, well—this is close, because even though there’s a slight amused tinge to his voice it doesn’t reach his eyes, and his smile is flat.
“Sorry…was I not supposed to…?” Rhys replies, voice a little fuzzy and heavy. His lips and tongue feel a little too big for his mouth, making talking as difficult as hearing. Remembering what exactly had happened is proving pretty hard too, which sucks. He wants to know why exactly Jack looks like that.
“Well, I…” Jack purses his lips together, before shaking his head. “You know what? It’s fine. Now that you’re awake, it doesn’t matter.”
He keeps stroking the soft spot where Rhys’ thumb meets his forefinger. It’s nice and relaxing, a far greater and steadier reminder of reality than the machines beeping around him.
“Might matter a little…don’t really remember what the hell happened to me…” He shifts, realizing he’s only half resting against the hospital pillow. Jack’s shoulder partially supports his head and he has Rhys’ hand held snugly atop his own stomach. Rhys can feel the vibration of Jack’s voice through his middle as he talks.
“Some moron didn’t secure the Overcompensator 2.0 prototype right. Damn thing broke through its rigging on one side, swung down, and brained you on the noggin.” Jack helpfully demonstrated the incident with his free fist and their joined hands, complete with a half-hearted “scream.”
“I feel like I’d remember something like that,” Rhys mumbles, trying to think, but its just a foggy blur of unconsciousness and pain.
“Oh yeah, uh. Doctor Whatshisname told me that. You might have some memory problems considering it…knocked some stuff loose in there.” Jack tilted his chin towards Rhys’ bandaged skull. “But don’t worry, they said they stuck it all back in place. Just gotta take it easy for a few days. Coast on that LOA pay.”
“Good thing I’m sleeping with the boss…I think he’s gonna let me slide…” Rhys sighs, letting his head fall against Jack’s shoulder. The impact, though light, sends a little shock of pain through his temple. Ow. They really had done a number on him. All this from a stupid prototype? He has to have had harder knocks to the head than that.
But cybernetics can be delicate little things. It isn’t the first time something’s gone wrong inside of his skull, but it has been awhile since he’s blacked out because of it.
The two of them lapse into quiet for a few moments. Rhys notices Jack as his face relaxes, the lines in his face apparent, even with the mask. The exact mechanics of how that could work escapes Rhys for a moment, but it’s clear enough Jack hasn’t been sleeping right. Shit. How long was he out?
“You…you look almost as bad as I feel…” He breaks the silence, earning Jack’s mildly offended chuff.
“Shut up, pumpkin. Hard to keep my looks up when I’m watching over your dumb ass.”
“Wow. Were you really that worried about me?”
“Well,” Jack sniffed, “I don’t now if worried is really the right word. Annoyed maybe. If you died or got put in a frikkin’ coma who am I gonna have organizing my files and fielding my e-mails? And ordering my coffee just the way I like it. No one else is gonna do, sugar. And if Handsome Jack doesn’t have his caffeine fix in a timely fashion this whole placeis gonna go down.”
“What about the blowjobs?” Rhys teases softly, giving Jack’s hand a squeeze as he snorts.
“The blowjobs are what’s holding this whole company together.”
Rhys smiles even as he feels numbness and exhaustion threaten to re-take him. He snuggles closer to Jack, craving the warmth and comfort of the CEO’s frame.
“Can I have permission to fall asleep this time?” He murmurs, breathing against the side of Jack’s neck. He smells less like the hospital, more of dusty cologne and that hint of blood that always clings to his skin. Weird to be comforted by that sort of smell especially when he’s apparently just dodged major injury, but he’ll take it.
He feels Jack lift their joined hands up until they rest against Jack’s chest, where he can feel the calmed beat of the CEO’s heart, lulling him back into a healing rest.
“I don’t mind keeping watch for a little bit longer.”
“i don’t like either candidate so i won’t vote” what are you thinking, if enough people wuss out we’re going to have President None Of The Above? hey we’re counting the votes and ten percent of voters stayed home and jerked it to their own ideological purity, guess we just won’t have a president and all the executive level decisions will be made by a magic 8-ball for the next 4 years
i wrote this 2 years ago and – yeah. look, let’s just learn, ok? midterms coming up, pull up your big citizen pants and go do the thing.
Sometimes people hit a place in their life where things are going really well. They like their job and are able to be productive at it; they have energy after work to pursue the relationships and activities they enjoy; they’re taking good care of themselves and rarely get sick or have flareups of their chronic health problems; stuff is basically working out. Then a small thing about their routine changes and suddenly they’re barely keeping their head above water.
(This happens to me all the time; it’s approximately my dominant experience of working full-time.)
I think one thing that’s going on here is that there are a bunch of small parts of our daily routine which are doing really important work for our wellbeing. Our commute involves a ten-minute walk along the waterfront and the walking and fresh air are great for our wellbeing (or, alternately, our commute involves no walking and this makes it way more frictionless because walking sucks for us). Our water heater is really good and so we can take half-hour hot showers, which are a critical part of our decompression/recovery time. We sit with our back to the wall so we don’t have to worry about looking productive at work as long as the work all gets done. The store down the street is open really late so late runs for groceries are possible. Our roommate is a chef and so the kitchen is always clean and well-stocked.
It’s useful to think of these things as load-bearing. They’re not just nice – they’re part of your mental architecture, they’re part of what you’re using to thrive. And when they change, life can abruptly get much harder or sometimes just collapse on you entirely. And this is usually unexpected, because it’s hard to notice which parts of your environment and routine are load bearing. I often only notice in hindsight. “Oh,” I say to myself after months of fatigue, “having my own private space was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a scary drop in weight, “being able to keep nutrition shakes next to my bed and drink them in bed was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a sudden struggle to maintain my work productivity, “a quiet corner with my back to the wall was load-bearing.”
When you know what’s important to you, you can fight for it, or at least be equipped to notice right away if it goes and some of your ability to thrive goes with it. When you don’t, or when you’re thinking of all these things as ‘nice things about my life’ rather than ‘load-bearing bits of my flourishing as a person’, you’re not likely to notice the strain created when they vanish until you’re really, really hurting.
Almost two weeks after reading this, and I’m still kind of blown away at what a ridiculously fruitful definition this is. Like I had no idea that load bearing things were a thing that needed to have a word for them, but now I’m like holy shit I’m so glad that there’s now a word I can use to refer to this really important class of Thing.
This is astounding. Load-bearing. Forget spoons, this concept is wonderful. I’m going to update my Spear Theory with this.
A BOTTLE containing a mystery liquid dating back to the time of
Jesus Christ has been hailed as a “unique” discovery after being
unearthed in Russia.
The 2,000-year-old artefact was uncovered on the site of the Phanagoria city, which was founded in the 6th century BC.
The ancient city was the largest Greek settlement on the Taman peninsula in the present-day Krasnodar Krai region of Russia.
The extraordinary object was discovered in the grave of a warrior in the Eastern Necropolis of the city.
It is filled with a mystery liquid which has not been identified.
Vladimir Kuznetsov, head of the expedition, described the discovery as “unique”.
He
said: “The discovery of the large glass filled with unknown liquid in
the sarcophagus of the Phanagorian horseman warrior is unique.”
The
discovery is the first of its kind, with Mr Kuznetsov revealing that
bottles previously found have been empty or full of soil.
He said: ”There are hundreds of similar bottles that were found in Phanagoria before that did not have the liquid.
“They were either empty or filled with soil.”
The large glass bottle contains a clear liquid with dark sediment at the bottom.
The discovery is the first time the expedition team have found liquid to have survived for that length of time.
Mr Kuznetsov said: “This is the first time me or my colleagues are seeing a liquid surviving that long.”
For what it’s worth, 2018 has been a really terrible year for the world,
but it’s been a really great year for archeologists digging up and
opening things that will unleash unspeakable eldritch horrors upon
humanity.
the Drake and Millie situation? why is this being allowed to happen. I know it happens all over the world but here – right in the public eye it’s happening and nobody is thinking anything of it??? Or are turning a blind fucking eye??
AO3 offer a comfortable, no payment, ad-free service in exchange for donations specifically to KEEP THE WEBPAGE UP AND RUNNING and people still complain?!
It’s not as if they ask that often for our money. Twice, thrice a year? I try to always donate (sometimes more, sometimes less) and see it as my way of paying for the infinite joy I get from the archive. It’s one of the few socilistic ideas that’s been acutally working: from everyone, for everyone. Brilliant.
A short comic about a girl, her mother and their different Black clothes.
I made this in late August this year for Seriefrämjandets yearly contest. The topic was comics for young people… and guess what, I actually won!
En serie med otroligt bra känsla för karaktärer, med god känsla för hur utseende och subkulturer betyder i ungdomens sökande efter en identitet. En serie som man ser på första anblick har hjärta, och som subtilt pekar på ämnen som andra skulle göra till huvudpoängen i historien. Som en liten bonus får vi en tjej i huvudrollen som känns levande och som man känner starkt inför.
I’m incredibly surprised, happy and grateful to have won. Since it got so much praise, I figured I should post it here. Thanks to Keetande for helping me with the tricky translation!
Personally I’d love to get bottom surgery to get a vagina without losing my penis which is perfectly possible but I doubt any cis doctor would do it given their tendency to think in terms of natural essentialisms that lead them to perform coercive surgery on intersex people to undo the very thing I’m asking for: non-standard genitalia.
This is the problem with the medical reification of biological essentialisms, that which doesn’t fit is made to fit.
ugh 